Lansing - If Hope Cole could give life another try, she wouldn’t have dropped out of school at age 15 or married at age 20.

She might have asked for another family without the problems that made her run away from home at age 13.

She wouldn’t have started drinking the alcohol, smoking the cigarettes or using the drugs she is now addicted to at age 24.

“Don’t start,” she said to her younger homeless friends Thursday. “It sucks. It’s to the point where homeless people are being treated like dirt under other people’s feet.”

Cole is one of about 600 homeless people living in Lansing. About 230 shelter beds are available for the battered, mentally ill, substance dependent and underage people who make up the city’s homeless population.

Affordable housing projects in the city are available, but past credit problems or evictions prevent some homeless people from utilizing them.

“Every shelter is full, and everybody has waiting lists,” said Kip Diotte, director of the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness. “We can’t keep up with the pressure at the front door. As soon as it hits 25 or 30 degrees, there will be a rush and we’ll have to roll out the cots and chairs.”

Despite the shorts she was wearing, Cole didn’t worry about cold temperatures when trying to find a place to sleep Thursday night. She already used her once-a-week chance to shower and brush her teeth.

In a few days she plans to move to Oscoda, Mich., where she can plan for her future. A disability check for a heart condition will pay her rent.

She wants to find her 3-year-old son, Robert, who is living in the southern United States. Cole can’t read a map - she can’t read at all - but when she pulls away from her addictions, she said she’ll try to learn.

Her ambitions include working at a carnival in Florida, where it is warm all year and the people are fun, but said she hopes for a different life for her son.

“I want to go to the zoo with my son,” she said while waiting to eat at the Lansing City Rescue Mission on Thursday. “I want him to go to college and finish school.

“I’m bitchy, but I’m very caring. I have a sweet personality.”

Dan Hicks, the rescue mission’s director, 607. E. Michigan Ave., said the mission’s holiday wish list includes toys and food of all kinds for the 60,000 meals served yearly.

“When you take in a person, you take in all their problems,” he said. “They generally have nothing, so we have to have everything. We’ve had some broke MSU students eat here before.

“We rely on donations from this time of year to get us through. Come June, July and August, the shelves will be bare - that’s when I start to cry for help.”

Instead of donating, computer engineering sophomore Octavia Gildersleeve volunteers her time for the holiday season.

“I just wanted to help out,” she said while serving food Thursday. “I can take 45 minutes or an hour out of my week for this. It makes you appreciate what you have.”

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimated 700,000 people are homeless on any given night in the United States. Economics Professor Charles Ballard said the economy will likely improve before cold weather comes in late 2002, increasing the chances to find stable housing.

For now, more paycheck-to-paycheck survivors pound on the mission doors than the traditional middle-aged men the 90-year-old independent mission used to service.

But some people aren’t looking for a warm bed or meal - they just want to be home for the holidays.

“I want my own house,” said 38-year-old Earla Fordham. “I want to be able to cook and clean and bake Christmas cookies. The kids want bicycles to ride and to be a normal family.

“I was looking every single day for a house. I’m just praying. There’s still time - it’s not Christmas yet.”

Fordham and her two youngest children have lived at the mission’s Family Center, 439 S. Cedar St., since October. They relocated to Michigan from Ohio to be closer to her other children but didn’t expect the search for affordable housing and work to be so difficult.

Living in a shelter separate from her husband, the family meets at about 6:30 a.m. every day to escort the kids to school and look for housing.

“The hardest part is the family not being together - we say goodbye at night, and he goes his way and I’ll go mine,” Fordham said. “We deserve more respect. There are some nice people that don’t deserve to be treated badly just because they don’t have a home.

“Nobody knows what’s in their heart.”

Jamie Gumbrecht can be reached at gumbrec1@msu.edu.